Do you know if there is any simple way or extension to import streetmap data into Sketchup?

I would like to create a wireframe (centerline of each road) out of this map. Before tracing all the roads I wanted to check if there are any tools/extension/workflows to make it easier than just tracing all the roads with pen tool?

My target is to 3D print the road network and I have been using/testing SVG import but when doing this I am not able to control the width of the road that needs to be exact width to have a nice and clean 3D print.

What would be the best way to crate a shell/single surface out of this Cat Mask 3D model?

I would like to create a surface of the "front side" of this model and then create a defined thickness for the model, with Shell type of Plugin, see link to image below. The reason for this is that I plan to 3D print this and therefore I would like to have certain thickness.

My plan was to use a Front view and Prallell Projection Gamera and select only visible faces but this still select also the faces in the back.

Do you have any good ideas/means for selecting only "Front side of the model" in complex geometry like this?

Do you have any ideas/tips/plugins (free or paid) for modeling this kind of vase? I have been thinking about using Flowify Plugin but the geometry gets somehow broken.

I was running D5 Render with my old desktop computer with GTX 1060 and it was running somehow OK, about 4-5min per single render for simple scene. I recently bought a new laptop computer with RTX3060 and I works pretty good, about 40-50sec per similar render.

I have been using D5 Render for a couple of months and I have to say that this is just great for non-commercial use. Earlier I have been using Twilight Render and Thea Render but D5 Render is much easier and quicker to use and I still get the good enough results for non-professional use. The only downside is that you will need decent spec for your computer.

Does anybody have any experience with this 3D model library? It states that it includes over 500,000 Sketchup models with only 70 euros.

(lab3dstudios.com)

Getting back topic also because in another discussion I got really good tips when looking for a replacement for old Brick'n tiles software.

What are nowadays the good softwares for creating seamless tiling textures? For example there some manufacturers providing quite good sample textures for parguet. For example here: https://www.kahrs.com/en/wood-floors/frosted-oat-strip and I would like to try to make seamless textures out of these sample textures.

Is the Pixplant still one of the best softwares to create seamless textures or are there some better ones available nowadays? Pixplant is at least reasonably priced alternative. There were some positive comments about Materialize but somehow I have not been able to get it to work when trying with 2 of my computers.

https://www.pixplant.com/index.php
https://boundingboxsoftware.com/materialize/

@gus r said:

I am not aware of being able to use any source textures with the Poliigon generator.

Another option might be Architextures where you can upload a source texture. I created some textures there yesterday and uploaded some that I required. You can add textures. Not sure how many.

You can generate a basic diffuse or color map and a black and white bmp. I like to create a normal map using the Nvidia Texture Tools. That's for rendering.

It's $5.95/month.

Thanks for this tip. This seems like a perfect solution for my purpose. I just assigned for this at least for a month.

@rich o brien said:

This is quite good for a free alternative to node based procedural material creation...

Material Maker

Material Maker procedural textures authoring tool web page

(www.materialmaker.org)

I will also check the Material Maker. After a quick test this seems to be really comprehensive tool but it takes quite some time to learn to use it. I tested quickly some basic templates but even those included so many inputs/outputs that I got totally confused.

@gus r said:

Have you looked into Poliigon generators? They also use the sbsar method. I got the modern bricks generator and it's really good. They also have a marble tiles generator. They also have a color picker to adjust tones which can be used outside of the Substance Player.

This looks really nice / quick /simple solution. Is there some way to use a source image as an input texture? For example if I have a source texture from a tile manufacturer I could use the image and just create nice tiling texture with some variations for tiles to make it realistic. I checked some Poliigon generator tutorials but I didn't see any option to use source images.

Source image example:


bp station locations us

I have lately been getting back to 3D model rendering and I would like to create my own textures from product images.

What are the software (free or paid) that you are using nowadays to create your own tiling/seamless textures, see example below?

I am still dreaming about Bricks'n Tiles but unfortunately it is no longer available. I also have some really old Substance player (Make_It_A_Parquet) template but somehow it doesn't really work because I am not able to change the background color and there are some weird lines in the output.